Although most pastors believe the Bible speaks to the critical issues of our day, less than 10% of today’s pastors, according to a new poll by George Barna, are willing to speak to today’s critical issues from their pulpits. The reason given by contemporary churchmen for their ecclesiastical dumbness is their concern that addressing any current and controversial issue may result in less attendance at church services and less money in church offering plates.

If you ask me, it’s a coon calling a possum a varmint when George Barna starts criticizing pastors for failing to address from their pulpits the controversial issues of our day. After all, Barna is much to blame for the consumer mentality that has captured the contemporary church in America. Through his research and polling he helped spearhead the seeker-sensitive church growth movement, which taught Christians to peddle the Gospel the same way Hoover does vacuum cleaners. Therefore, when today’s pastors lamentably gauge the success of their churches by “attendance, giving, number of programs, number of staff, and square footage,” they are simply accessing their churches in the same way business owners do their companies. Isn’t this what Barna taught pastors to do? So how does he get away with turning around and criticizing pastors who’ve followed his advice for failing to speak out on the critical issues of our day, simply because doing so will “keep people from being in the seats…from giving money [and] from attending programs”? If you ask me, George Barna is now ranting and raving at a monster of his own making.

A few years ago, Barna and his good friend Bill Hybels, the pastor of Chicago’s Willow Creek Community Church, the flagship of the seeker-sensitive church growth movement, were forced by Barna’s own research to painfully confess that the church under their seeker-sensitive tutelage had not gained ground and influence in the world, but lost it. Barna’s research incontrovertibly proved that the seeker-sensitive church model is only adept at drawing crowds, not at making disciples. As Focus on the Family reported, “If you simply want a crowd, the ‘seeker-sensitive’ model produces results. If you want solid, sincere, mature followers of Christ, it’s a bust.”

In response to the disturbing findings of Barna’s recent poll on modern-day mealy-mouthed preachers, Chuck Baldwin, a radio broadcaster and former presidential candidate, wrote the following in an article entitled: Odds Are that Your Pastor is Keeping the Truth from You Instead of Preaching It.

“That 90% of America’s pastors are not addressing any of the salient issues affecting Christian people’s political or societal lives should surprise no one. It has been decades since even a sizable minority of pastors have bothered to educate and inform their congregations as to the Biblical principles relating to America’s political, cultural and societal lives…America’s malaise is directly due to the deliberate disobedience of America’s pastors—and the willingness of the Christians in the pews to tolerate the disobedience of their pastor. Nothing more! Nothing less! When Paul wrote his own epitaph, it read, ‘I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.’ (II Timothy 4:7) He didn’t say, ‘I had a large congregation, we had big offerings, we had a lot of programs, I had a large staff, and we had large facilities.’

It is time for Christians to acknowledge that these ministers are not pastors; they are CEOs. They are not Bible teachers; they are performers. They are not shepherds; they are hirelings. It is also time for Christians to be honest with themselves: do they want a pastor who desires to be faithful to the Scriptures, or do they want a pastor who is simply trying to be ‘successful?’”

Years ago the famous Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, wrote the following about his search for America’s greatness: “I sought for the greatness of the United States in her commodious harbors, her ample rivers, her fertile fields, and boundless forests—and it was not there. I sought for it in her rich mines, her vast world commerce, her public school system, and in her institutions of higher learning—and it was not there. I looked for it in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution—and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great!” Well, the flame has gone out in our pulpits and today’s America has ceased from being either good or great.

As I’ve been saying for years, there is no way to grow a big church preaching the pure and unadulterated truth in today’s truth-regurgitating world. All true preachers of God’s truth today, just like the Apostle Paul, as well as all true preachers of God’s truth throughout time, will be persecuted by the world, never popular within it. Both our Lord and the Apostle Paul assured us of this (John 15:18-21; 2 Timothy 3:12). Contrary to popular opinion in today’s contemporary church, the Apostle Paul taught that the distinguishing mark of a true man of God was his suffering for Christ’s sake at the hands of this world, not his being seen within it as a worldly success.

The criteria Paul gave for a true minister of God was a minister, like himself, that was “pure from the blood of all men” because he “shunned not to declare…the [whole] counsel of God” (Acts 20:26-27). Interestingly, and most relevant to our day and time, Paul immediately proceeded from his characterization of the true minister of Christ to caution the church about a coming influx of false ministers of Christ. They, unlike true ministers of Christ, would “enter” the church as “grievous wolves…speaking perverse things” in order “to draw away disciples after themselves” (Acts 20:28-30). Far from faithfully feeding the flock, these hirelings are unsparing of the flock of the Good Shepherd in their pursuit of selfish ambition.

George Barna’s research proves that there are many false ministers of Christ in modern-day pulpits. These wolves in sheep’s clothing are attempting to build themselves a church and reputation rather than being used by Christ to build His church and magnify His name. All of this reminds me of a quote credited to the great Protestant Reformer Martin Luther: “If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”

One of my mentors, Lynn Harnage, a man who possessed more spiritual insight and discernment than anyone I’ve ever known, used to infuriate younger Christians by calling Jars of Clay “Jugs of Mud.” I found myself wondering if old Lynn wasn’t on to something when I saw Jars of Clay perform at a Billy Graham crusade in Tampa, Florida. While they climbed the stage scaffolding a lady next to us did a pole dance for Jesus. Well, I’ve kept all of this under wraps for years, but never got it out of the back of my mind. Today, it’s all come back to me. Dan Haseltine of Jars of Clay has come out in support of same-sex marriage in a series of tweets on Twitter. Here’s some of what he tweeted:

“I’m trying to make sense of the conservative argument. But it doesn’t hold up to basic scrutiny. Feels akin to women’s suffrage. I just don’t see a negative effect to allowing gay marriage. No societal breakdown, no war on traditional marriage. Anyone?”

“I think the vast interpretation [of Scripture] has left room for people to deal inhumanly and unlovingly toward others that don’t fit their guidelines.”

“I don’t particularly care about Scriptures stance on what is ‘wrong… I care more about how it says we should treat people.”

Perhaps, Haseltine should get in touch with Elane Huguenin, a Christian photographer in Albuquerque, New Mexico who was sued for her refusal to photograph a lesbian couple’s same-sex wedding ceremony. He may also want to consider that the United States Supreme Court refused to hear her appeal of the New Mexico Supreme Court’s unanimous guilty verdict. And, last but not least, he may also want to read the opinion of New Mexico Supreme Court Justice Richard C. Bosson, who, while admitting Christians have a right to practice our faith in private, asserted that the compromising of our convictions in public is the price we must now pay for our citizenship. Haseltine might not see any slippery slope here, but I see a slope steeper and more slippery than any the church has ever faced in America.

What people like Haseltine don’t understand is that today’s gays are militant and on the march to silence the church’s preaching of the Gospel and to outlaw the Christian’s scriptural convictions. They are armed and dangerous, having an arsenal comprised of reputation destroying bad press, finically ruinous civil litigation for discrimination, and even the threat of criminal prosecution, thanks to our nation’s new hate crimes laws.

For those of you brave enough to face the truth of what is really going on in America today, I recommend you read my book—Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace: The Compelling Arguments Against Same-Sex Marriage. The book is free and complimentary copies are available for distribution in churches. You can also read the book online here: http://bit.ly/1dVXpwgn

Looks like the “Jugs of Mud” (Jars of Clay) have gotten muddier since their frontman Dan Haseltine came out in favor of same-sex marriage. After suffering a considerable backlash for his disturbing comments from Bible-believing Christians, Haseltine honestly admitted that he has been secretly at odds with evangelical Christianity for some time. For instance, in 2012, while working on Jars of Clay’s album Inland, which is largely secular in nature, the singer shared some thoughts about his secret struggles with evangelicals in a blog post on his personal website. According to Haseltine, the fact that evangelical Christians would not embrace Jars of Clay’s secular music was somewhat of a “relief” to him, since, as he put it, “I am pretty weary from years of pretending to be more of something than I am.” He then added, “I am tired of carrying evangelical expectations on my shoulders.” Haseltine’s honest admission confirms suspicions I’ve had for a long time, namely, that many popular, contemporary, Christian recording artists are pretending to be something they’re not. The reason they practice such hypocrisy, which is what Jesus called it, is obvious; they’re not in it for the sake of Christ, but for their own sakes. Rather than lifting up Jesus, they’re seeking personal fame and fortune, and despicably using Christ’s name, as well as His church, to do so.

My long held suspicions about many of today’s contemporary Christian recording artists should not be misinterpreted to mean that I believe there is an absence of hypocrisy in other genres of music, like Southern Gospel, or in our church pews or pulpits. Neither should it be misinterpreted as a broad swipe at all contemporary Christian music. There are some contemporary Christian recording artists whose spirit definitely bears witness with my spirit, such as Chris Tomlin. I even believe God is using some Christian rappers like LeCrae to communicate the Gospel to people who I could never reach. Still, don’t expect me to pull up next to you at a red light with LeCrea’s music blaring out of my car’s woofers.

Two things are far more disturbing to me than Dan Haseltine’s descent down the slippery slope that Katy Perry recently traveled, which finally resulted in her denouncing both Christ and her Christian faith. First, there is Haseltine’s deceptive description of casting off the cross from his shoulders, the cross which all followers of Christ are called upon to carry in this fallen world (Luke 14:27), as a mere freeing of himself from “carrying evangelical expectations on [his] shoulders.” Have you noticed how much apostasy is being excused today as a mere revolting of the younger generation against the traditional church and the older generation? The young apostate characterizes his or her desertion from the cardinal doctrines of the historic and orthodox Christian faith as nothing more than a revolt against grandma and grandma’s church. When scripturally rebuked for departing from sound doctrine and the orthodox Christian faith, today’s young apostates refuse to defend their beliefs, words, and actions with Scripture, since they are scripturally indefensible. Instead, they just condemn anyone confronting them with the Scripture as an antiquated, self-righteous, know-it-all.

The above scenario is trapping the contemporary church in a perfect storm of apostasy. Apostasy grows unbounded in the contemporary church because of the reluctance of the older generation to contend for the faith, lest they incur the ire of the younger generation. At the same time, sound doctrine is becoming increasingly intolerable, thanks to the younger generation’s spurning of it as “uncool.” It’s all adding up to the biblically predicted “perilous times” of the “last days” when men “will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts…heap to themselves teachers having itching ears” (2 Timothy 3:1; 4:3).

The second thing more disturbing to me than the ear-tickling Haseltine is the lack of those with ears to hear in today’s church. Spiritual discernment is a rare commodity in contemporary churches. We seem to believe that the proof of genuine spirituality is worldly popularity. Yet, the Bible clearly teaches that the true follower of Christ will find himself/herself persecuted in this world rather than popular within it. The absence of the Spirit of God has become inconsequential to many a contemporary Christian who looks only for worldly glitz and glitter. As a result of stardust in their eyes, contemporary Christians place popular preachers and Christian performers atop the coveted pedestal of celebrity, where they are seen as above reproach. At the same time, however, the persecuted prophet of God is seen as a clueless old fool who doesn’t understand how to reach people in a post-Christian world.

As I stated early, when I heard Jars of Clay at a Billy Graham Crusade in Tampa a few years ago, my spirit went into the heebie jeebies, especially when they started climbing the stage scaffolding and a young lady sitting next to us stood up and started doing something that resembled a pole dance. Still, I must admit, as I looked around, it seemed to me that I was the only one failing to discern the presence of the Spirit in the midst of the goings-on. In all honesty, I’ve had similar experiences in many so-called moves of God over the last several years. Where others have seen God in it, I’ve failed to sense the Spirit of God anywhere around it.

Have you ever asked yourself why scandals involving Christian celebrities are normally uncovered initially by the secular press? Have you ever asked yourself how a pretender like Dan Haseltine can get by for years without raising a single antenna of spiritual discernment among his many evangelical fans? Why is it that contemporary Christians never seem able to discern spiritual pretense on the part of those attempting to use the church for their own ends? Whether it’s a politician attempting to use the church in pursuit of elected office or an entertainer attempting to use the church in pursuit of fame and fortune, the unsuspecting church keeps lining up at the polls and box office. Of course, once the politician gains office or the entertainer gains celebrity, the church and the Christian faith get tossed to the side like last week’s magazine.

An earthshaking event has occurred in America once again without America’s Christians feeling the least little tremble beneath their feet. The United States Supreme Court has allowed a most ominous ruling of the New Mexico State Supreme Court to stand. According to this ruling, “the price of citizenship” for Christians in America will henceforth be the sacrificing of our religious freedom and the compromising of our Christian convictions.

As I wrote in my book, Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace: The Compelling Arguments Against Same-Sex Marriage, homosexuals are purposely targeting Christian business owners with financially ruinous civil suits. One of the examples cited in my book is Elane Huguenin, a Christian photographer in Albuquerque, New Mexico who was sued for her refusal to photograph a lesbian couple’s same-sex wedding ceremony.

When the New Mexico Human Rights Commission ruled against Huguenin and in favor of the lesbian couple, Elane appealed her case to the New Mexico State Court of Appeals, which upheld the Human Rights Commission’s guilty verdict. Afterward, Huguenin again appealed her case, this time to the state Supreme Court. Much to her chagrin, the New Mexico Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Huguenin must photograph same-sex wedding ceremonies in violation of her Christian convictions.

In his concurring opinion to the majority opinion, Justice Richard C. Bosson asserted that everyone must make concessions in life over matters that violate their conscience. Bosson went on to write that Christians like Elane Huguenin and her husband Jon may freely live out their faith privately, but, when it comes to owning and operating a public business, they must check their religious faith at the door. According to Bosson, the compromising of our Christian convictions is “the price of citizenship.”

Citizenship in these United States once guaranteed Americans the right to freedom of religion. All citizens had a constitutionally guaranteed freedom to follow their religious convictions. Today, however, we’re being told by our courts that the forfeiture of our religious freedom and the compromising of our religious convictions is the price we must pay for our citizenship. In light of this unprecedented development, which literally turns our Constitution upside down, one cannot help but wonder about the value of present-day citizenship. What is it worth if it comes at the extremely high price of what it once guaranteed, namely, our rights and freedoms?

What makes this situation most ominous is the fact that the United States Supreme Court has refused to hear Huguenin’s final appeal, which translates into the New Mexico Supreme Court’s ruling becoming the new law of our land. As a result, American Christians suddenly find themselves without a legal right to publicly practice their faith or to publicly follow their Christian convictions.

That our courts are becoming increasingly antichrist is easily proven by their sheer hypocrisy. Take for example our judicial system’s legalization of abortion on demand. According to our courts, a woman’s “right to privacy” trumps her unborn child’s right to life. In spite of the fact that the unborn child’s right to life is guaranteed in our nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence, our present-day judiciary insists that a woman’s “right to privacy” gives her control over her own body so that she has the legal right to choose whether or not to terminate the life of her unborn child.

Now, at the same time our courts rule that women have a “right to privacy” over their own bodies, they also rule that Christians have no “right to privacy” over their privately owned businesses. Whereas women have the right to choose whether or not to take the life of their unborn children, Christian business owners have no right to choose who to do business with or what business services to offer. In both cases, our courts are found guilty of concocting law in order to justify the constitutionally unjustifiable; namely, denying the unborn child’s right to life and the Christian business owner’s right to the free exercise of religion.

In today’s America, all it takes to thwart the will of the people, to erase the laws of our land, or to stand our Constitution on its head is one black robe clad judge armed with a gavel. Once the gavel strikes, the judge’s personal opinion takes precedence over our nation’s founding documents and all previous jurisprudence. His or her opinion becomes the new law of the land and we find ourselves in a nation no longer ruled by law, but by lawyers.

Thomas Jefferson, the principle author of our Declaration of Independence, once warned of the danger of making “judges the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions.” According to Jefferson, this “very dangerous doctrine” would eventually lead to putting “us under the despotism of an oligarchy.” Jefferson went on to warn that granting the judiciary alone “the power of declaring what the law is” makes it into “a despotic branch” of government, makes judges into “despots” and makes the Constitution into “a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.”

Although Jefferson personally pleaded for America to reject the notion of judicial despotism once and for all, lest the judiciary “slyly and without alarm” accomplish “what open force would not dare attempt,” namely, the undermining of our Constitution and the overthrow of our government, today’s America has failed to heed the warning. Consequently, judges have now become kings, the bench a throne and gavels scepters. Rather than respecting the law and the rule of law, America has become a nation ruled by judges.

I know most people within the contemporary church yawn over today’s judicial despotism. They spend their time biting their nails over how to inoffensively share the Gospel with today’s politically correct culture. They are totally unaware of how our politically correct culture is attempting to silence the church’s witness altogether through today’s judicial despotism. It’s like the contemporary church is trying to pat the back of a political correct culture that is trying to slice the throat of the contemporary church.

I’m afraid many contemporary Christians will not be shaken from their spiritual stupor until they suddenly awaken to the fact that they are living in a land that has outlawed their Christian faith. Then, they will have to decide, as Peter and John did (Acts 4:18-20), whether they will defy the antichrist courts of our day or deny the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter and John courageously defied the Supreme Court of their day and continued preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ regardless of cost and consequence to themselves. What will you do? One thing for sure, the time is quickly approaching when you will have to decide whether to stand up for your Christian convictions or bow down before a Supreme Court hellbent on silencing the Gospel of Jesus Christ in America.

Big news was made this week when World Vision publicly announced its decision to reverse its ban on hiring “Christians” in same-sex marriages. The decision was made in an effort to avoid losing funding from liberal denominations, such as the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the United Church of Christ. According to Franklin Graham, World Vision’s willingness to compromise its biblical stand on this critical issue of our day had Bob Pierce, the founder of World Vision and Graham’s Samaritan’s Purse, turning over in his grave.

The firestorm of criticism it suddenly found itself in following its public announcement to begin hiring homosexuals led World Vision to reconsider and quickly reverse its policy reversal. Unfortunately, World Vision’s motive in both decisions, its initial policy reversal and its subsequent reversal of its reversal, was financial, not doctrinal. Whereas the bottom line in its initial policy reversal was to avoid losing funding from liberal mainstream denominations, the bottom line in its reversal of its reversal was to avoid losing funding from conservative evangelical denominations, many of whom vowed to defund World Vision over its compromising of biblical doctrine and undermining of biblical authority.

In the end, World Vision simply weighed matters on the scales and decided that it would be more financially advantageous to reverse its reversal, since losing the funding of conservative churches would prove to be a greater blow to its finances than losing the funding of liberal churches. I’m reminded here of the words of our Savior: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24).

Although many of my Christian brethren will rejoice over World Vision’s reversal of its reversal and praise it for standing up for biblical truth, I can’t help but see in all of this something that is horribly wrong at the core of many churches, denominations, and Christian organizations today. Too many are overly concerned with their own survival—economic and otherwise—and too little concerned with the preservation of the purity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which poses the only hope of salvation for lost humanity!

As our Lord’s letter to the church in Ephesus proves, it’s not enough for us to do right things (Revelation 2:1-7). We must also do right things with right motives. Only when we’re doing right things for the right reason, our love for Christ, will our actions be acceptable and pleasing to Him. It is my contention that much of what is being done in the contemporary church is being done out of love for ourselves, our ministries, our churches, and our denominations, not out of love for our Savior.

Contrary to popular opinion among contemporary Christians, our mission in this world is not to preserve ourselves, our ministries, our churches, or our denominations. Instead, it is to preserve the purity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Churches come and churches go. For instance, the churches started by the Apostle Paul have long since passed away. Still, thanks to Paul’s staunch stance to protect the purity of the Gospel, we have a pure Gospel in the world today. This, more than the continuing existence of local congregations he started, is the legacy this chosen vessel of Christ left to our world.

Like the Apostle Paul, our mission in this world is to preserve the purity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our generation, as well as for future generations. As it has been astutely observed, Christianity is only one generation away from extinction. Therefore, we must pass the torch of a pure Gospel off to posterity if future generations are to have any hope of salvation. Nothing should take precedence over this when it comes to the church’s mission in the world today!

Perhaps, nothing is more indicative of the subtlety of the serpent in the world today than the contemporary church’s willingness to compromise the Gospel in its attempts to shut the door on the younger generation’s mass exodus from the church. Believing the future survival of local churches is dependent upon their success in reaching younger people, many local churches are willing to do whatever it takes to appeal to a amoral and avant-garde younger generation. Even if it means dulling the sharp doubled-edged sword of the Word of God. Overly concerned about the survival of their local congregation and unconcerned about the preservation of the purity of the Gospel, many “churches” today have pitched the offensive message of the cross of Christ to the side in order to pave a politically correct path to their front door for young relativists.

It is imperative today, and will become increasingly so in the days ahead, that Christians and churches come to understand that there are things far more important than our own survival. Truth is one of those things! Consequently, we should be willing to do whatever it takes to preserve it, even if it requires sacrificing ourselves, our ministries, our churches, and our denominations. It will do you well to remember in these days and times these most relevant words of our Redeemer: “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:35). Take special note of our Lord’s particular appeal for us to be willing to sacrifice ourselves not only for Him, but for the Gospel. Are you willing to go to the mat for the truth of the Gospel or are you, like World Vision and many contemporary churches, willing to compromise the Word of God in order to survive?

I recently told my wife that my greatest asset in these days was the fact that I’m over myself. I’ve come to terms with my seeming irrelevance. I fully understand that it’s not about me, but it’s all about Christ. My significance in this world is found in Christ’s use of me for His glory. Nothing else in my life has eternal consequence. My sole desire, apart from conformity to Christ through daily communion with Him, is to be used by Christ in every way He can use me, as well as in the greatest ways He can use me for His glory.

I was recently told by a professional marketer that as an author all I could possibly hope for in today’s politically correct world was a very small niche audience. A newspaper editor once told me that I could never be a syndicated columnist, because my articles were to hard-hitting and controversial. According to him, printing my pieces could prove most detrimental to newspapers in a day when they are already fighting for their survival, thanks to the world’s ever-increasing conversion to digital media.

Well, what’s a guy like me to do. I could tone it down, write with a softer led pencil, and aim at giving readers the warm fuzzies rather than at glorifying God. If I did, I might become marketable and create for myself the potential of a wider readership. But, as I’ve already pointed out, I’m totally convinced that it’s not about me, but all about Him. Therefore, I find any obscuring of Christ on my part for the purpose of self-promotion to be absolutely deplorable.

I know many will argue that we have to conform to the world in order to convert it. After all, how are we going to influence the world if it ignores us and is incensed by us? We must meet the world on its terms if we are to exercise any influence within it. This is the popular justification offered for compromise today. From politics to the pulpit, we are told that the compromising of truth is essential to success. No one can get anywhere in today’s world who refuses to soften their stand for the truth and to speak ambiguously rather than straightforwardly.

Today’s politicians justify compromise on their part as essential for their election to public office. According to them, without compromise they cannot be elected and without being elected they cannot possibly make a difference. Yet, I’m reminded here of one who lost a public election by a landslide to a common criminal all because of His absolute refusal to compromise the truth (Matthew 27:11-26). As a result of His courageous stand for the truth, He was executed by public demand on a cruel Roman cross. Still, no one has ever made such a difference in this world as this plain-spoken, truth-telling, uncompromising Nazarene.

Many preachers today justify compromise on their part as essential to church growth. According to them, people won’t even come to church if we plainly and boldly proclaim the truth. Therefore, to make our pulpits appealing to today’s politically correct world we must be ambiguous about the truth. We must draw people in with other things and afterward attempt to sneak the truth in on them incrementally, one tiny teaspoonful at a time.

The fatal flaw in this kind of spiritual false advertising is found in the fact that men are not persuaded to come to Christ by our entertaining and appealing church services, by our tactful, tight-lipped, incremental gospel presentations, or by our persuasive and inoffensive pulpiteering. Instead, men are only persuaded to come to Christ under the power of God. It is under the power of the Holy Spirit that sinners are convicted of their sin and persuaded to turn to the Savior. Apart from the Holy Spirit’s conviction, no man is able to confess Jesus as Lord (1 Corinthians 12:3). Furthermore, apart from the simple and straightforward preaching of Christ and Him crucified, no man will ever be convicted by the Holy Spirit of God.

When the leaders of the Jerusalem church, in an attempt to make the Gospel more appealing to the Jews and to lessen a growing conflict in the church over the controversial issue of circumcision, attempted to persuade the Apostle Paul to back off from his staunch opposition to the circumcision of Gentile believers, Paul refused to budge an inch or to give in for a second (Galatians 2:5). He understood, as few do today, that the least little compromising of the Gospel is all it takes to corrupt it and to imperil its purity for posterity. Rather than safeguarding the truth of the Gospel for future generations, if Paul had failed to stand his ground, the Christian faith would have been reduced to a Jewish sect and would have never gotten off the ground as the universal faith it is today, a faith calling all men everywhere to repent of their sin and to trust Christ for their salvation.

The Apostle Paul was under no illusion that the pure Gospel he preached would be popular in this world. He understood that it was the ultimate insult to lost humanity. The preaching of the cross is an unavoidable offense to this lost and dying world (Galatians 5:11). Think about it; whereas every other religion in the world teaches that man is good enough to save himself and to earn his own way to Heaven, Christianity teaches that we are so sinfully depraved and hopelessly and helplessly lost that there is absolutely nothing we can ever do to earn for ourselves God’s salvation or acceptance.

Since sinners are completely incapable of saving themselves from sin, Christ had to come into this world and do for us everything necessary for our salvation. Now that He has, the only thing we can do to be saved from our sin and reconciled to God is swallow our pride, come to Christ humbly on our knees, and reach out by faith and receive from His gracious nail-scarred hand a divine handout; namely, the gift of God, which is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23).

It is my contention that the message of the Gospel is proof positive that the Christian faith alone is true and that all other faiths are false. The only possible explanation for the origin of the Gospel is a divine one. No man would have ever made up a faith so unflattering to lost humanity.

In 2 Timothy 1:8, Paul’s young protege Timothy is admonished by Paul not to be ashamed of Paul’s imprisonment or of Christ’s testimony; that is, the preaching of Christ and Him crucified. What possible reason could Timothy have for being ashamed of Paul, his mentor, or of Christ, his Master? The so-called super apostles, the suave, silver-tongued preachers of another gospel (2 Corinthians 11:4-5 NIV), used their popularity in the world as proof of God’s favor. At the same time, they used Paul’s imprisonment and Christ’s crucifixion to discredit them as miserable failures whose unpopularity in the world served as proof of God’s disfavor.

Instead of boasting about his worldly success, the Apostle Paul boasted about his sufferings in this world (2 Corinthians 11:1-33). Instead of teaching, like the super apostles, that worldly popularity was proof of God’s favor, Paul taught that this world’s persecution serves as the sure sign of faithful service to Christ (2 Timothy 3:12). Just as this fallen world was incapable of loving Christ, because He was not of the world, so is it now incapable of loving all who faithfully follow Christ, since they too are completely out of step with the world (John 15:18-25).

Contrary to the teachings of the super apostles, Paul taught Timothy that the true servant of God would always be more appalling to the world than appealing to it. As James put it, being the world’s friend is being God’s enemy and choosing to be a friend of the world is to make oneself an enemy of God (James 4:4). In spite of these clear teachings of Scripture, the contemporary church, like the super apostles, measures spiritual success by worldly appeal and dismisses the persecuted as ineffectual servants of Christ.

In his Christian classic, Born Crucified, L. E. Maxwell wrote: “Mark well, O popular Christian and worldly-wise preacher, venturing how far you must go with the world in order to win the world: never had the church so much influence over the world as when she had nothing to do with the world.” It was the severely persecuted first century church that turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6). It was in the face of the world’s vehement opposition and violent persecution that the early church led a third of the world’s population to kneel at the foot of the cross of Christ. As a result, one of the early Church Fathers, Tertullian, said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” The more the world tried to stamp out the church, the more the church spread and the more of the world it took.

It is not just in contradiction to the truths of Scripture, but also in contradiction to the facts of history, that today’s church insists that the only way to win the world is by becoming chummy with it and by conforming to it. All who say differently are not only dismissed today as antiquated old fogies rendering themselves irrelevant in today’s high-tech, politically correct world, but are also denounced as intolerant for their refusal to believe that the church can group hug a world at enmity with God into the kingdom of Heaven.

When will we learn that it is not winning elections or growing large churches that changes the world for Christ? Instead, it’s God’s truth and His people’s uncompromising declaration of it, regardless of cost or consequence to ourselves? Jesus, who declared Himself to be “the truth” (John 14:6), taught us that it is only by coming to know the truth that we can be free (John 8:32). Free from what? From Satan, sin, and self. Free for what? Free to be all that God created us to be and to live the life God created us to live. It is coming to know Jesus—the truth—that makes us “free indeed” (John 8:32). Yet, how can men come to know Christ if the church is reluctant to introduce them to Him or attempts to introduce Christ to them incognito?

Recently, Katy Perry, a former gospel recording artist turned pop star, renounced her Christian faith. Although Ms. Perry started out singing contemporary Christian music, she switched to secular pop music in 2007, releasing her first single with Capitol Records, a song about experimentation with lesbianism entitled, I Kissed a Girl. Since then, she has zoomed to the top of the charts and become one of the world’s most popular pop stars.

In a recent interview with Marie Claire Magazine, Ms. Perry confessed, “I’m not Buddhist, I’m not Hindu, I’m not Christian, but I still feel like I have a deep connection with God.” She went on to say, “I don’t believe in a Heaven or a Hell, or an old man sitting on a throne.” Of course, Ms. Perry is just the latest in a long line of contemporary Christian artists who have switched from Christian music to secular music and afterward renounced their former Christian profession to the applause of the world.

As deplorable as I find the betrayal of our Lord by the Katy Perrys of our world, what is even more deplorable to me is the reaction of Ms. Perry’s father to his daughter’s apostasy. Her father, Keith Hudson, who pastors Church on the Rise in Westlake, Ohio, has come out in defense of his daughter’s renunciation of Christ. According to Pastor Hudson, we shouldn’t be “judgmental” or “critical” of his daughter, because “God has given [them] a platform to go in and meet people—and [people] like [them] because [they] are cool.”

I suspect that cool rather than cold is just as nauseating to Christ as being lukewarm rather than hot (Revelation 3:15-16). In addition, I’m convinced that much of what passes for healthy spiritual behavior in today’s church is sickening to Christ. But, what do I know, I’m one of those antiquated old fogies who still believes that the salvation of lost souls is not contingent upon how “cool” we are, but upon whether or not we are willing to faithfully and fearlessly preach a pure and unadulterated Gospel, which alone is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16).

Unlike Katy Perry and her family, I’m not cool and I know it. Mine is an ever-narrowing platform and an ever-shrinking audience. Not only am I not popular, but my unpopularity in today’s politically correct world is growing by leaps and bounds. When it comes to growing congregations with my preaching, I’m afraid my sermons are far more likely to shrink them than to grow them. It’s clear to me that I’m inevitably headed, as was the Apostle Paul, to being abandoned someday in my own “Mamertine Prison” (2 Timothy 1:15; 4:16). Yet, like Paul, I say, “But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).

The Hitler Youth movement was used by Adolf Hitler to indoctrinate an entire generation of Germans into pledging their allegiance to the Third Reich and into becoming loyal Nazis. Hitler explained the process by which German youth were brainwashed in the following words: “Boys and girls enter our organizations [at] ten years of age…after four years they go on to the Hitler Youth, where we have them for another four years…And even if they are still not complete National Socialists, they go to Labor Service and are smoothed out there for another six [to] seven months.” If after all of this, any of them still held beliefs contrary to national socialism, Hitler promised “the Wehrmacht”; that is, the German armed forces, “would take care of them.”

To pull off his indoctrination of Germany’s youth, Hitler outlawed homeschooling in 1938, forcing all German children into the public schools, where they would be force-fed Nazi propaganda. A main target of Hitler’s outlawing of homeschooling was the influence of Christian homes and churches on Germany’s children. In fact, Hitler used his Hitler Youth to break up church youth movements, spy on Bible studies, and to discourage church attendance. Although much has changed in Germany since the days of Adolf Hitler, it is still against the law to homeschool your children.

In 2008, the Romeike family fled to the United States after being ordered by the German government to stop homeschooling their children in violation of national law. Ewe and Hannelore Romeike, the Christian parents of six children, were granted asylum by an immigration judge in 2010. The judge, Lawrence Burman, granted asylum to the Romeikes on the basis of his belief that they would face persecution for their faith if returned to Germany. At first glance, one would think that this was a happy ending to the Romeike story, but such is not the case.

The Obama Justice Department, under Attorney General Eric Holder, appealed Judge Burman’s decision and eventually proved successful in having it overturned by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. According to the Obama Justice Department, the German government has every right to force all German children to attend Germany’s public schools as part of its effort to create an “open, pluralistic society.” Such an argument from the Obama Administration sounds eerily similar to the 2007 German Supreme Court ruling that mandated German children be sent to the country’s public schools. The German high court explained its ruling of mandatory attendance of all children in the public schools as necessary to “counteract the development of religious and philosophically motivated parallel societies.” All of this leads us to an inevitable and frightening conclusion. If the Obama Administration believes the German government has the right to indoctrinate all German children in its public schools, including and in particular the children of Christians, it must also believe that it has the right to indoctrinate all American children in our public schools.

The Romeikes, at least for the time being, are still living in rural Tennessee. They have appealed their case to the United States Supreme Court, in hopes that the highest court in our land will see their case differently from the highest court in their homeland. Interestingly, the Obama Administration has so far waived its right to respond, believing the Romeike’s case is too insignificant for the United States Supreme Court to waste its valuable time on. This, in itself, poses a most intriguing question. If the Obama Administration believes this case to be so insignificant, then, why has it invested so much time and taxpayer dollars to get this Christian, homeschooling family sent back to Germany? The only possible answer to this question is most disconcerting. The Obama Administration obviously does not care about the persecution of Christians, only about the indoctrination of their children

We have all learned in recent days that our president is inattentive when it comes to the major problems facing today’s America. However, he is laser focused on persecuting Christians, like the Romeikes and David Green, the owner of Hobby Lobby, who refuse to compromise their God-given convictions. He is equally determined to indoctrinate our children so as to turn them into politically correct members of an “open” and “pluralistic society.” In other words, a society within which no biblical doctrine is truly believed nor any Christian conviction sincerely held.

In his first televised interview after winning the presidency in 2008, Barack Obama told “60 Minutes” that he was reading a book about F.D.R. It turned out that the president-elect was actually reading more than one book about the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. No sooner had Mr. Obama been elected, when his fellow Democrats began promising America a new “New Deal.” As Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times, “Suddenly, everything old is New Deal again. Reagan is out; F.D.R. is in.”

The late Senator Jessie Helms once said: “The destruction of this country can be pinpointed in terms of its beginning to the time that our political leadership turned to socialism. They didn’t call it socialism, of course. It was given deceptive names and adorned with fancy slogans. We heard about New Deals, and Fair Deals and New Frontiers and the Great Society.”

Garet Garrett, one of the most ardent opponents of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, once warned in an essay that a day would come when the American people would be “looking up the road” for a coming socialist revolution that had already occurred “behind them.” According to Garrett, “It went by in the night of the Depression, singing songs to freedom.”

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the patron saint of today’s liberal Democrats, attempted to parlay economic crisis (the Great Depression) into a socialist takeover of America. Roosevelt, proposed to a decimated and impoverished populace, that the federal government become the caretaker of the citizenry. A desperate nation in dire and desperate straits acquiesced. Afterward, the electorate gratefully granted their beloved and seemingly benevolent president an unprecedented four terms in office.

Roosevelt’s socialist coup de tat eventually ran into a brick wall in the form of the United States Supreme Court, which struck down the heart and soul of Roosevelt’s New Deal— the National Industrial Recovery Act. According to the Court, the federal government had grossly overstepped its constitutional authority in the implementation of a myriad of Roosevelt’s socialist programs.

Enraged by the Court’s ruling, Roosevelt proposed to add a justice to the Supreme Court for every justice who reached 70 years of age. Although he explained his proposal as nothing more than an attempt on his part to lighten the workload of elder justices, no one was fooled by the president’s thinly veiled attempt to pack the Court with justices who would rubber stamp his socialist programs and pave the way for the country’s transformation from capitalism to socialism.

Undoubtedly, Roosevelt’s loyal and unwavering electoral support, as well as people’s perception of him as the country’s savior, gave him the audacity to brazenly attempt to pack the Supreme Court and take over the judicial branch of government. Gratefully, Roosevelt failed in his attempt to take over the judiciary; and Congress, having witnessed the danger posed by a four term president, past a law limiting all future presidents to two terms in office.

Even members of Roosevelt’s own Party rose up in staunch opposition to his court-packing proposal. As a result, the New Deal became a “No Deal” and Roosevelt was handed one of the most crushing defeats of his political career. Outraged by Roosevelt’s brazen coup de tat, Democratic Representative John O’Connor accused F.D.R. of “arousing the people of this country as they have seldom been stirred up before.” O’Connor went on to add, that the people saw in their president’s proposal “the strength of a dictatorship…[and] the people of this country want no part of a dictatorship.”

As it has been astutely observed, “If we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.” President Obama, like F.D.R., was voted into the Oval Office at a time of financial crisis in America. His former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, counseled the fledgling president in the initial days of his presidency not to let the nation’s economic “crisis go to waste.”

Mr. Obama wasted no time attempting to implement his socialist agenda under the cover of our country’s financial crisis. Of course, the heart and soul of President Obama’s new “New Deal” is the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare, as the Affordable Care Act is better known, is a brazen attempt by President Obama and his political party to shove America into socialized medicine, which is intended to snowball into a socialist takeover of America.

The dysfunctional mess of the Obamacare rollout has clearly caught President Obama and the Democratic Party with their ideological breeches down. It is all attributable to their cramming of an unread law down the throat of the American people. Why would Democrats pass such a massive law with its immeasurable impact upon our country without even bothering to read what was in it? Truly, there is only one explanation; they couldn’t have cared less about whether or not the law was good or bad. All they cared about was force-feeding us their socialist ideology.

Despite passing an untenable law about which they were totally ignorant, Democrats promised Obamacare would result in more insurance policies being issued and insurance premiums being lowered. However, as we all now know, millions have lost their policies and the price of premiums is doubling and tripling. Suddenly, Mr. Obama’s socialist power grab has reached into the pockets of Americans, causing an unexpected backlash against Obamacare and threatening the success of this president’s coup de tat.

Borrowing a final play from F.D.R.’s “New Deal” playbook, President Obama and his Democratic colleagues in the Senate are now brazenly attempting to pack the federal judiciary with justices that will not only protect Obamacare from being repealed, but will also rubber stamp socialist programs designed to push and shove our country into becoming a socialist state.

Yesterday, Democrats pushed the “nuclear option” button in the United States Senate. In an act of shameless hypocrisy, they actually perpetrated what they once condemned as a “naked power grab” when merely proposed by Republicans. Of course, like their patron saint, F.D.R., they too thinly veiled their brazen attempt to take over the federal judiciary. According to Democrats, their “nuking” of Senate rules in order to run over opposing minority opinion was merely done to end Republican’s obstruction of President Obama’s liberal nominees to the federal judiciary, which, unlike Democrats’ past obstruction of conservative nominees to the federal judiciary, is unpardonable rather than patriotic. Patting themselves on their hypocritical backs for their sham solution to gridlock in Washington, President Obama and his Senate colleagues are attempting to underhandedly pull off what F.D.R. got caught red-handed—pardon the pun—trying to perpetrate.

Many Americans have feared a mushroom cloud rising over America ever since 9/11. Well, their fears have now been realized; however, it has not occurred as they envisioned. No Muslim terrorist has setoff a nuclear device in downtown Manhattan. Instead, Senate Democrats, with the blessing, and I believe coaxing of our president, have pushed the “nuclear option” button in the United States Senate.

Undoubtedly, most Americans will fail to see how this dictatorial act has blotted out the sun over our country’s future. They will continue to watch for dangers from without, while our country is being destroyed from within. They will continue to see terrorist acts perpetrated by militant Islamists as the real threat to America, not dictatorial acts perpetrated by socialist elitists.

Make no mistake about it, the dearth of discernment in our land today, along with our dumbed down populace, is exactly what President Obama and liberal Democrats are banking on. It is also why they unhesitatingly and repeatedly make one naked power grab after another without fear of being called to account. They confidently believe they can succeed in an inattentive America where F.D.R. failed in a vigilant one. What do you believe?

“Everyone in this chamber knows that if the majority chooses to end the filibuster – if they choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic debate, then the fighting and the bitterness and the gridlock will only get worse. I urge my Republican colleagues not to go through with changing these rules . . . I sense that talk of the nuclear option is more about power than about fairness. I believe some of my colleagues propose this rules change because they believe they can get away with it rather than because they know it’s good for our democracy.” (Senator Barack Obama speaking against the Republican’s proposed “nuclear option” in 2005)

“The threat to change Senate rules is a raw abuse of power and will destroy the very checks and balances our founding fathers put in place to prevent absolute power by any one branch of government.” (Senator Harry Reid speaking against the Republican’s proposed “nuclear option” in 2005)

When it comes to creation, modern-day scientists fail to get a bang out of the Good Book. Consequently, they substitute their “Big Bang” for God’s Word as the explanation for the origin of the universe. Whereas the Bible teaches “that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” (Hebrews 11:3), modern-day science teaches that things which are seen were made of things which do appear. Therefore, the modern-day scientist has closed his Bible in order to seek another explanation of the origin of the universe in things that are observable to him under his microscope or through his telescope.

This years’s Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to two theoretical physicists who suggested the existence of a particle which confers mass on other particles. This particle, named after one of the physicists, Peter W. Higgs, is known as the Higgs boson. It is more popularly referred to as the “God particle,” a term that serves as a thinly-veiled mockery of all who believe in the words of Genesis 1:1—“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”

In July of last year, the long sought after Higgs boson particle was discovered at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, in Switzerland. The Large Hadron Collider was built by 10,000 scientists to collide trillions of particles together in hopes of finding a few traces of the Higgs boson. Once a trace of the Higgs boson was found, some scientists arrogantly announced that the scientific community was well on its way to an explanation of creation devoid of a Creator. Though many ascribe modern-day science’s attempts to repudiate the Bible to the brilliance of present-day scientists, the Bible condemns as a fool anyone attempting to explain away the existence of the Creator with an elementary particle of creation (Psalm 14:1; 53:1). Furthermore, the Bible ascribes such foolish theories of so-called science to the black hearts of scientists rather than to their brilliant minds (Romans 1:18-25).

The scientific community’s search for the Higgs boson particle was necessitated by its want of an explanation for how particles blown through space at the speed of light by the Big Bang massed together to form matter. Science’s Big Bang theory is based on the supposition that our universe is ever-expanding. For instance, astronomers have observed in the pattern of galaxies scattered across the night sky, vestiges of sound waves rumbling through the universe. These sound waves are thought to be similar to the expanding ripples caused by a stone cast into a pond. Therefore, astronomers believe that these sound waves serve as convincing proof that our universe originated with a Big Bang; that is, an explosion of such unimaginable proportion that the universe has been expanding from it ever since.

What incredible power could possibly account for such a blast from the past? While scientists are reduced to calling the creative agent of the cosmos a Big Bang, faith, as Hebrews 11:3 teaches, enables us to “understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God.” It was from nothing that God spoke everything into existence. God simply said, “Let there be” and BANG “it was so” (Genesis 1:3, 6-7, 9, 11, 14-15, 20, 24, 26-27). Since the instant of its inception, the universe has been expanding from the incredible, incomprehensible, and explosive power of God’s Word.

Despite its fantastic discoveries of sound waves rumbling through the universe and an elementary particle that serves as a cosmic molasses, modern-day science is completely void of answers to the following questions: (1) What power caused the Big Bang at the universe’s inception? (2) How did flying particles blown through space at the speed of light mass together to form orderly matter with its intricately designed details? (3) How do lifeless particles mass together to form living organisms? (4) And, if the universe is totally dependent upon and completely explainable by the laws of nature, then, where did the laws of nature come from?

Far from disproving the existence of God, the discoveries of modern-day science, as the above questions clearly show, inevitably lead us back to the Creator as the only viable explanation for creation. According to the Apostle Paul, to deny the existence of an intelligent Creator in the face of the evidence of an intricately designed creation is to prove oneself to be an inexcusable imbecile (Romans 1:20-22). While Noble Prizes may be rewarded to scientists attempting to reduce God to a particle, Christians should neither be deceived by nor ashamed to defend our faith against what is being falsely called science today (1 Timothy 6:20; Jude 1:3).

Among other things, such as the “belief in the essential goodness of man,” which explains its unbiblical and fatally flawed premise, the dictionary defines liberalism as “individual freedom from restraint” in matters of economics and “the autonomy of the individual” in matters of “civil liberties.” Thus, modern-day liberals masquerade themselves as the tolerant champions of civil rights and personal liberties.

The old saying, appearances can be deceiving, has never been more apropos than it is when applied to modern-day liberalism. Not only is modern-day liberalism foreign to the dictionary’s definition of the term, but modern-day liberals are nothing like what they feign to be. In fact, in most instances, the reality of modern-day liberalism is antithetical to its appearance. For instance, let’s consider its proudly worn “prochoice” moniker. Though it puffs out its chest to proudly display it; the truth is, no one is more antichoice than modern-day liberals.

When you boil liberalism’s modern-day prochoice movement down to the bottom, you’ll find yourself left with only a handful of choices defended by liberals, such as, a pregnant woman’s right to choose an abortion and a homosexual’s right to choose an alternative lifestyle. What’s more, all opposing choices to these few defended ones are not defended by liberals. Indeed, liberals vehemently deny the right of others to make countervailing choices and are hellbent on outlawing all alternative choices incompatible with their own.

When it comes to abortion, the only choice liberals defend is the choice of a pregnant woman to end the life of her unborn child. Her right to choose, trumps the unborn child’s right to life in the minds of modern-day liberals. Furthermore, liberals insist that no one else, apart from the pregnant woman, has any freedom of choice in cases of abortion. The father of the child, as well as the parents of a pregnant minor, are to be denied any choice in the matter. Voters are to be denied the right to choose at the polls any proposition that outlaws or restricts abortion in their state. Pharmacists are to be denied the right to choose whether or not to fill a prescription for the morning-after pill. And business owners are to be denied the right to choose whether or not to include abortion inducing drugs in any healthcare benefits provided for employees.

When it comes to homosexuality, liberals believe that the convictions of Christians should be kept locked behind church doors and that the Christian voice should be silenced in the public square. At the same time, liberals believe that homosexuals have the right to march out of their closets and publicly parade their sexual perversion down the main street of every city and town in America. According to modern-day liberalism, homosexuals have every right to choose to publicly profess and parade their sexual immorality, but Christians have no right to choose to publicly declare and demonstrate their biblical morality.

In addition to the above, liberals believe so strongly in the homosexuals’ right to choose, that they believe the God ordained bedrock of all orderly society—traditional marriage—should be redefined to accommodate the homosexuals’ pretense to marry. At the same time, liberals are determined to deny freedom of choice to every American objecting to same-sex marriage.

They want to forbid churches from choosing to ban same-sex wedding ceremonies from their facilities.

They want to forbid ministers from choosing not to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies.

They want to forbid photographers from choosing not to take pictures at same-sex wedding ceremonies.

They want to forbid bakers from choosing not to bake wedding cakes for same-sex wedding ceremonies.

They want to forbid florists from choosing not to provide flowers for same-sex wedding ceremonies.

They want to forbid landowners from choosing not to rent or lease their properties to same-sex couples.

They want to prevent business owners from choosing not to provide benefits for an employee’s same-sex partner.

On and on we could go, but you get the picture. It’s not very pretty; in fact, it’s downright frightening. Under the mask of the modern-day liberal one finds:

A black heart, not a bleeding one.

Intolerance, not tolerance.

Militants, not peaceniks.

Autocrats, not egalitarians.

And Antichrists, not, as so many of them profess, followers of Christ.

Under the guises of civil rights and personal liberties, goose-stepping liberals have been on the march for years to take over these United States. Determined to silence all dissenting voices to their liberal agenda, they have been chipping away incrementally at the rights and liberties of nonconformists. Rest assured, they will not rest until we are left with no choices and trapped beneath the thumb of their tyranny.

Whether it’s where your kids go to school (school vouchers), what they’re taught (creationism), what you drive (SUVs), who you rent property to (fair housing), who you hire in your business (affirmative action), whether or not you own a gun (gun control), or even what kind of lightbulbs you use in the lamps in your house, liberals are anti-choice and “pro-coerce.” Far from wanting a prochoice America, liberals dream of a day when Americans are left with no choice at all. Is the liberal dream, or should I say nightmare, about to come true?

I know I’m a part of a dying breed, but I really believe all the answers are in the Book; that is, the Bible, God’s answer book. Even the answers to all of our modern-day problems. For instance, the great controversy engulfing our country today is over the George Zimmerman verdict. Now, I’m not wanting to get into the particulars of the case and into whether or not the jury’s verdict was right or wrong, but I want to talk about how some, especially many in the African-American community, ascribe racist motives to the jury’s verdict.

We all know, regardless of the evidence and the law, nothing but a guilty verdict would have appeased some within our country today. The reason for this is because race has become many people’s idol. It is always first and foremost in their minds. It comes before everything else, including truth and justice. Regardless of everything else, these people who bow before their colored idols insist that the overriding determining factor in everything should be skin pigmentation. If decisions or verdicts favor someone of their race, then, right and justice have been served. However, every time a decision or verdict is unfavorable toward someone of their race, then, the cry of racism is immediately heard. The decision or verdict is dismissed as wrong and unjust and ascribed to racist motives, not to mention the fact that those behind the decision or verdict are condemned indiscriminately for bigotry.

Modern-day America has fallen prey to many ills that have proven terminal to our country. One of them is “white guilt.” White guilt is the belief that white Americans must ever bear the inescapable guilt of our forefathers’ crimes against people of color. The past atrocities of slavery and segregation must now be perpetually paid for by white Americans, despite the fact that present-day white Americans had nothing to do with the perpetration of these crimes and that our country has long since repented of them and made great strides to rectify them. Still, nothing can resolve white Americans from our forefathers’ guilt nor cleanse our “racist” hearts of the evil of inbred “bigotry.”

All of this is predicated on the assumption of America’s irremediable institutional racism. Ironically, such an assumption is based on the classic definition of prejudice. The word prejudice is defined as a preconceived idea about someone on the basis of their race. Institutional racism is therefore a classic example of prejudice, since it is the preconceived idea that every white person is a racist because all white people are inherent racists. Granted, there may be no evidence of racism in a white person’s life and the white person may believe himself/herself to be free of prejudice, nevertheless, the evil of bigotry is ever crouching at the door of every Anglo heart.

I’ve always found it interesting that many of the racial demagogues in this country claim to be men of the cloth. The cloth in their case, however, is a cloak used by them to conceal their race baiting. They continuously attempt to incite one race against another in an attempt to promote themselves and to make personal profit. What makes their crime even more egregious is the fact that they perpetrate it under the guise of being ministers of Christ.

It seems to me if these race baiters were really Gospel preachers they would be preaching what the Gospel teaches. For instance, they would not be inciting resentfulness between the races, but instructing forgiveness between the races. They would teach that we should forgive one another as Christ has forgiven us (Matthew 6:12; Ephesians 4:32). Furthermore, they would teach that our forgiveness of those who have wronged us, not the guilt of those who have wronged us, should be perpetual (Matthew 18:21-22). How can these race baiters claim to preach a message that has redemption at its heart when all they ever do is incite resentfulness and sow discord among the races?

In the famous “Love Chapter” of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul teaches us that love “thinks no evil” and “believes all things.” The Amplified Bible translates “thinks no evil” as “takes no account of the evil done to it.” It also translates “believes all things” as “believes the best of every person.” According to the Bible, if we really cared about one another in this country, we would stop taking account of past wrongs done to us and stop ascribing to each other ulterior and sinister motives.

Of course, one has to understand that the love Paul is speaking of in 1 Corinthians 13 is the new kind of love that Jesus brought into the world. It is God’s love. It is not “eros” or self-love—I love myself. It is not “philos” or brotherly love—I’ll love you if you love me. It is “agape” or unconditional love—I’ll love you no matter what.

This love is only received when the Holy Spirit deposits it in our hearts (Romans 5:5). The Holy Spirit does so when we place our faith in Christ for salvation. Until we turn from our sin to trust the Savior for our salvation our hearts will be void of the love of God. In other words, until we come to know Christ, we’ll know nothing of this kind of love, which explains why this Christ-rejecting world’s universally touted tolerance keeps breeding more and more intolerance among the races. Apart from Christ, we will never be able to really care for one another, and the animosity between ethnicities will continue to escalate to monstrous proportions.

One of the signs Jesus predicted would precede His Second Coming was that “nation [will] rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom” (Matthew 24:7). The Greek word for “nation” is “ethos,” which is the Greek word we get our English word “ethnic” from. The Orthodox Jewish Bible translates Jesus’ words in Matthew 24:7 in a most poignant way: “For there will be an intifada of ethnic group against ethnic group.” Are we not seeing this sign clearly displayed in our society today, as well as throughout our world? Furthermore, can anyone deny that our Christ-rejecting world’s attempts at eradicating this ongoing problem have done nothing but exacerbate it?

The bad news is, dark and difficult days lie ahead, since there is no way our Christ-rejecting world can prevent the coming biblically predicted “intifada” between the races. The good news is, the time has come for us Christians to “lift up [our] heads for our redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).